The Best It Support Desk – Is It Time for a New IT Team?

Often, partnering with an MSP is the best solution to save time, money, and prevent frustration.

Key takeaways:

• Efficient IT support equals productivity and cybersecurity.
• Challenges include technology changes, recurring issues, and understaffing.
• Successful IT support desks have a customer focus.
• Collaboration with IT-managed service providers can enhance support.

An efficient IT support desk cannot be stressed enough. Great support is the lifeblood of a flowing organization. Inefficient, poor support leads to lost productivity, cybersecurity worries, a lousy customer experience, and unnecessary expenses.

Most IT support is challenged by rapidly changing technology, recurring issues, and a lack of staff.  Inefficiency Is marked by poor communication, lack of proactive issue resolution, and  no scalability.

You need to understand the workings of a successful IT support desk, including what it’s supposed to do, and the eight key components that make it top-tier.

What does an IT support desk do?

The help desk is the first point of contact for IT problems. Everything from password resets, to complete network outages and data breaches is fair game. An IT support desk  supports total IT infrastructure. That means all IT assets, including people. 

Your help desk should deliver more than solutions – it should serve people personally. This involves a single point of contact, prompt answers to questions, and fast, efficient fixes. Complex problems take longer than simple ones, but a top-tier desk solves issues quickly – sometimes before problems are realized.

An efficient IT support desk is customer-centric. It soothes frustrations and speedily handles complaints with tact, diplomacy, and a servant’s heart.

Component 1: Assessing current performance

If you are frustrated by IT support and can’t pinpoint why, or there are complaints around support ranging from real issues to “user error,” then perform an analysis. Use these KPIs to measure performance over months.

• Number of lost business hours. Get a handle on downtime. How many outages, software issues, and other problems impact business performance?

• Rate of change success. Were changes in software, network configuration, and other IT resources conducted successfully with minimal disruption? 

• How stable is your infrastructure? Circling back to lost business hours, how many outages and major incidents have there been? 

• What’s the ticket volume? How many tickets have been filed? How quickly were they handled? Which problems occur frequently?

• What is the first call resolution rate? Did the support desk deploy the needed experts to fix the problem the first time or were repeated attempts necessary?

• Check your service level agreement. Is your current IT support desk fulfilling their part of the bargain? 

Finally, take a look at what you’re paying and figure out the cost per ticket. This allows you to analyze IT support efficiency.

Additional components of successful IT support desks.

Next, focus on the 7 other essential traits for an effective IT support desk and insist upon them.

Customer centricity

A customer-focused culture equals a high-performing IT support environment. Your staff needs necessary training to feel empowered and confident and to embrace continuous learning. Ensure everyone in your organization grasps their customers' identities, preferences, and communication styles. Emphasize empathy for compassionate and helpful problem-solving.

Streamlined communication channels

Users need to reach the support desk through multiple channels. The desk should have a dedicated email address and phone number. Large organizations can use an internal ticketing system to reduce frustration and increase efficiency. 

Create a knowledge base

An IT knowledge base enables customer self-service for simple problems (have you tried turning it off and on again?) and provides documentation around software and hardware. Any new support desk staff can get up to speed quickly. The danger lies in outdated information, so documentation must be updated regularly.

Implement proactive issue resolution

Some IT problems are common enough to be anticipated. These include internet outages, data loss, forgotten passwords, printer problems, and deleted files. These easily fixed problems occur day in and day out and increase frustration. Your IT support desk should have a process to quickly resolve these issues. Implement preventive measures such as updating software, training employees, and maintaining a current knowledge base.

Keep educating your team

Continuous improvement is crucial for the entire organization, especially for IT support desk personnel, facilitated by ongoing training. As technology advances, your team must keep up to provide quality support. Establish a program of continuous training.

Build a responsive support team

A quick response to any IT issue, whether simple or complex, is crucial for your business since your IT infrastructure drives its operations (see customer centricity, above). Response times need to be five minutes or less with an average resolution of an hour. This plays into the idea of continuous improvement: the average industry response time is two to three hours.

IT support and scalability

Entrepreneur Jim Rohn said, “Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to succeed, but more importantly, what is your plan to succeed?” Having all the IT expertise in the world means nothing if you fail to prepare scalable IT infrastructure and support.

Quality support should be at your fingertips

This short list outlines what you can do to improve internal IT support. It takes time, money, and dedication. One effective way to enhance the quality of your IT support is by collaborating with a company that provides IT-managed services (MSP).

You'll receive expert assistance, proactive problem-solving, monitoring, and automation solutions, and a strategic focus on continuous improvement. 

Endsight is an award-winning MSP born in 2004 with a mission to provide enterprise IT best practices to small and mid-sized organizations while reducing unexpected costs and providing budget predictability. We offer unparalleled value along with the answer to “How do I build a successful support desk?”

Learn how our support services work